Feb 22, 2022
The next few episodes are going to be covering moving and change movement in our surroundings and the things that are around us. Because I've had moving on my mind. If you've been following on Facebook, I did a live last week talking about some of the anxiety and some of the anxiousness I've been having around moving. But my husband and I are moving out of our home and going into a condo and staying in Chicago. But anyway, it's the process of moving. The idea of moving sounds awesome and great, until you come down to the point where you have to pack and get everything situated and moved out. So that's the stage that we are in now. I wanted to share a little bit about some thoughts and some teachings that I've acquired through my certification at The Life Coach School, about things and clutter. And when you have clutter around you, how that is affecting the clutter that you have in your mind. So I have this closet that has been sort of my holding pattern for selling things online. I used to sell a lot of stuff on Poshmark and I am a Poshmark Ambassador. Before I found coaching, I would spend a lot of time building my presence on Poshmark and reselling some of my beautiful items that I've acquired. It was really a great thing to do at that point in my life. But I still have this closet of things that are listed that have not sold things that I keep telling myself I'm going to take photos of and post and sell and make money off these things that I don't wear anymore. Because when I lost my weight, my 25 plus pounds, when I was working with Corinne Crabtree, I had this closet full of clothes that I loved, that were beautiful that fit me at one point, but just don't fit me anymore. And I had a hard time just giving them away and getting them out of my house, so they just got thrown into this random closet that was stuffed full of shoes and clothes that don't fit anymore. And it was my goal yesterday that I was going to clean out that closet. If something didn't fit me, if something wasn't part of what I wanted to move forward in my new venture with, it was going to be cleaned out of this house. Yesterday was a super productive day; I had two of my best girlfriends come over, we did it together. And it was so helpful because one person stuffed stuff in her car and she dropped it off at a women's shelter. It was really important for me to give these items that I loved and had love for and loved parts of my life while I was wearing these things or had them on my body, I wanted to pass that energy on and give it to somebody that could absolutely benefit and maybe have a new beginning was something that I had in my life at one point so and then some stuff I am giving to a friend who could use some new items in their life. And then other stuff I donated to Goodwill. I feel really good about cleaning these things out. What I've come to notice is that the more we attach memories and past feelings and experiences with items, we just accumulate clutter and then we have anxiety when we look at these closets when we open that junk drawer and takes us half a minute to find a damn paperclip because your junk drawer is full of junk. Why do we allow that into our lives? So as I'm moving in editing things down, I'm starting to ask myself some very pointed questions about the things that I have in my life and being okay and giving myself permission to let go of things because we have this fear of scarcity and when we don't have abundance around us, we feel like there's something wrong with us. We feel like we might not have the right thing. We might want to wear that dress that we wore in a wedding 15 years ago, because we spent more money than we normally would on a piece of clothing. So we feel like we can't possibly throw that away, because we're throwing away our money. But what we're really doing is holding on to something that's holding us back. Because every time you look at that dress, you're frustrated, because it's still hanging in your closet, and you're waiting for that moment to come up that you might wear it. But if you just get rid of things that have no purpose in your life anymore, you're making room in the closet of your life for things to come in New beginnings to start new memories that you're going to create. So don't hold onto things for the hope that you'll use them again for hope that they'll bring back memories that you had when you were wearing that thing at one time or remembering the time you bought it and the feeling that you had when you purchased it. As long as we're holding on to things because it brings us to a place in our past, we're preventing ourselves from moving forward, and creating new things with our future. And I just want to offer that to you this week, as you're going through and maybe looking through a drawer of makeup samples. That's the other thing I went through, I had all of these samples of perfume, makeup testers of things that I kept saying, Oh, maybe I'll use it, when I travel, I'll put it in my suitcase, instead of putting a full size, something that I would normally use with my own home, I'll take the travel size, and it's been two years, and I still have these samples laying around. So I donated that to the women's shelter. And just think about the things that you have around you that aren't actively being used, and how you can provide them to somebody else. And maybe that is just the one thing that they are looking for. And something that's going to spark a new beginning for them, a new beginning of their life and how much you can provide to somebody by letting go of something in your life. So something I like to ask myself, when I look at items that I'm no longer wearing, no longer using anymore. I look at them and I say, “Would I buy that today?”, like truly, like if I went to Target, Macy's, Nordstroms, wherever, would I look at that item and say, Oh, I love that. I want that today, if you wouldn't buy it today, get rid of it. If it doesn't fit you if you're waiting for yourself to lose the weight. Or if you're holding on to clothes that don't fit you anymore, maybe because you've lost some weight. I know that was a lot of my story. Before I met Corinne Crabtree and became part of her membership. I had a lot of clothes I loved but now that they don't fit me, why am I holding on to something that doesn't fit me anymore? Is that giving me the mental space to say I'm going to gain my weight back? Am I waiting to gain my weight back. And those are things that I just think are so important to just let go of your life. And many of us think about this money that we have spent on things and maybe there's not a big free flow of money available to you. But you've spent that money already. So if you've spent the money, the item has been accumulated in having space taken up in your house for these last several years, but it's not being utilized. Tell yourself is that money you spent many years ago still affecting you now? And would you rather have a sense of freedom and a sense of fresh open space in front of you, instead of looking at this item that has been collecting dust and collecting space in your closet that you don't use anymore? You may be listening to me. I'm thinking oh, so I don't have the ability to just throw things out and buy new stuff. The point is, throw things out? And consider not necessarily needing to replace them? Can you live with less in your life?
Do you need to have all of these things around you? Because you're actually going to use them? Or are they serving some sort of emotional purpose in your life that maybe you've moved on from or maybe releasing that thing and giving that item that you're not using anymore? To somebody else for their fruition? Is that giving you an opportunity to then start to discover the new version of you that maybe would pick something differently? Or would it want to have something different in their surroundings? So I'm certainly not sitting here and, and making it seem like money is no option. Money is free falling for everyone because I know that's not the case. But all I'm saying is, when you start to get into the mental space of deciding what things you have in your surroundings and the things that you accumulate, you'll start to notice that when you go to the store, and for me, it was, you know, big for buffering, I talked about that in one of my earlier episodes about buffering, that I would go shopping. Because I was filling time with shopping, instead of feeling the loneliness that I would feel when I would go home to an empty house. And I accumulated a lot of random things from the corner aisles that target the clearance aisles that target clearance aisles at home goods. I mean, I've got gadgets for all these random things that I probably have never even found a use for. But they were on sale, they were on clearance. And I started to accumulate things. And now since I've had an opportunity to start managing my mind, I've started to stop myself from even buying these things. So as you start to do work on why you're accumulating things, you'll notice that as you're cleaning out, you'll get to a point when you're shopping, and you'll get really good at asking yourself, Is this something that I need, you'll start to recognize that buying something just because it's marked down because it's a good deal, because it's a designer brand, and you found it 70% off is not a reason to accumulate something. So if you can take something away from this week's episode, maybe think about an area in your home, in your kitchen, in your bathroom, in your office, in is there somewhere that you can start to just clear the clutter. And maybe it's as simple as just a drawer. Or maybe it's the closet, maybe it's the refrigerator. But just if you can find an opportunity to just focus on one thing at a time a drawer that every time you open you just like hate the fact that your life is a mess in your you're living in this shambles of disorganization and just tell yourself, you're going to take it one step at a time. And you maybe don't need 30 ink pens in your junk drawer. Maybe you don't need 42 paper clips that you don't use but once every six months. So that is my gospel for this week. It has I am continuing on my moving journey. We are moving in less than a month. So like I said the next couple of episodes I'm going to have some pretty insightful things about clearing the clutter out of your life and feeling gratitude for change in your life. Have an awesome weekend. Remember it is never too late to discover your meeting. Talk to you soon.